AVEBURY, a parish in the hundred of SELKLEY,
county of WILTS, 6 miles (W. by S.) from Marlborough,
containing, with the tything of Beckhampton5
688 inhabitants. The living is a discharged vicarage, to
which that of Winterbourne-Monkton was united in 1747,
in the archdeaconry of Wilts, and diocese of Salisbury>
rated in the king's books at £9, endowed with £200
private benefaction, and £200 royal bounty, and in the
patronage of the Crown. The church, dedicated to St.
James, is of Norman architecture. The river Rennet
has its source in this parish. In 1722, Susannah Hoiford
bequeathed £200, directing the interest to be applied
to the instruction of poor children. The village
occupies a portion of the area of a stupendous monument,
called Abury, supposed to have been constructed
by the ancient Britons, for the purposes of religious
worship, or national assemblies. It consisted of an
extensive ditch and rampart, including double circles
of large unhewn stones, many of which have been
broken, and used as materials for building the houses
in the village, and for other purposes. In the vicinity
are several barrows, and among them, the very large
and remarkable one, close to the turnpike road, called
Silbury Hill, which covers an area of five acres -and
thirty-four perches, and exceeds in dimensions every
similar work in Great Britain, being two thousand and
twenty-seven feet in circumference at the base, and one
hundred and twenty at the summit; its sloping height
three hundred and sixteen feet, and its perpendicular
height one hundred and seventy. Within a short distance
of this are the remarkable stones termed the
Grey Wethers, and about a mile north of the village
is a cromlech. An Alien priory, dependent on the
Benedictine abbey of Bocherville in Normandy, was
founded here in the reign of Henry I. Robert of Avebury,
who wrote a history of Edward III., is supposed
to have been a native of this place.